How Merry Got His Heart in the Right Place
by Bean2
Summary: Merry loves Pippin, and Pippin loves him. Problem is Merry doesn't want anyone to know that he loves Pippin, not even Pippin himself.


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How Merry Brandybuck Got His Heart in the Right Place

A.N.: Well, my first ever LOTR fic. I hope you like it ok, It's a bit short, but most of my "firsts" are. Read and Review and I'll tell Merry and Pippin to come bonk for you. *g*

Meriadoc Brandybuck was not a happy hobbit.

Pippin had just beaten him at their fourth game of chess in a row and was very noisily voicing his approval of the situation.

"Merry! Sure you don't want to play another game?" He flashed a big hobbit grin in Merry's direction. "I wouldn't mind, and you might actually win this time."

Merry muttered something that sounded distinctly like "Prat", and began to put away the chess set, handling carefully the brittle pieces he and Pippin had made from bits of wood earlier in the quest. Beyond the glowing campfire, Legolas grinned at the two hobbits, his fondness for them evident on his fair elvish face. Merry caught the grin and fixed the elf with his most piteous expression.

"I suppose you find my defeat amusing as well, eh?"

A lovely, silvery laugh erupted from Legolas. "Not so much your defeat, dear hobbit, as your reaction to it."

Merry nodded, plunking down on a bit of grass before the fire. He and Legolas regarded each other silently for a moment or so, before Legolas, flashing again that lovely smile, rolled over and settled down for sleep. Merry sighed as the eye contact was broken: Legolas obviously didn't need it the way Merry felt he did. If he were allowed he could quite easily spend the entire quest simply gazing into the elf's blue eyes.

"Who're you pining over now?" Merry looked up to see an amused Pippin standing over him, and made a face. Pippin laughed, the expression on his face one of perfect hobbit cheerfulness, but in his eyes, Merry thought, there seemed to be great sadness.

"What makes you think I'm pining over someone?" He asked, hoping that he sounded off hand.

Pippin's smile faded and the expression on his face mirrored the sadness in his eyes. "Because I can see it. You looked on me with those eyes once..."

Merry's breath caught in his throat. He and Pippin hadn't spoken of their fleeting yet passionate relationship since it had ended, only months before they joined Frodo on his quest. He quickly cast about, hoping his companions were as asleep as they appeared to be. Legolas, at least, he was sure was still awake and even their most covert whispering would not be lost on his keen elvish ears.

"Are you sure there isn't another time that we could talk about this, cousin." He asked, putting emphasis on the word 'cousin'. For that was the word that had been the end of their relationship. Pippin looked back at him then, and there was such a pain in his emerald eyes that Merry found it impossible to look away.

"Yes Meriadoc," Merry winced at the cold usage of his full name, "We are cousins." Pippin's tone was biting. "But second cousins only, and by marriage at that." He stopped and appeared to be choosing his next words carefully. "Had Meriah never married Hildegran, would you have felt free to love me then?"

Merry remained silent, though his heart was practically screaming at him to reply, he could not get past the idea of potential eavesdroppers. Pippin spoke again and this time there was no hint of malice in his voice.

"I love you Merry. I've loved you for as long as I can remember. But its clear to me now why you refused to show that you loved me back." A half-hearted and rather forced looking grin came to his lips. "You didn't, at least not enough. Had you, you wouldn't have cared what others thought, I didn't and I don't. Its funny that way, love is." He smiled sadly at Merry, stood and trotted over to an empty spot by the fire, and there he lay down to sleep. Merry watched him, his breathing ragged with the sobs begging to escape, his vision blurred by the tears threatening to spill down his flushed cheeks. Why hadn't he told Pippin that he loved him? Why hadn't he kissed him, thrown him to the ground and made love to him right there? He loved the hobbit so much it was painful, but found himself unable to break from the high-strung notion of how the world was supposed to work. How would his father react? Merry was sure that if Saradoc Brandybuck ever found out the way Merry_'s _insides caught fire, and the way his face turned all sorts of different shades of purple every time a certain hobbit was in the vicinity, or saw the thoughts that ran through his son's head after any form of contact with Peregrin Took, he surely would not live to tell the story of his father's reaction.

~*~

Merry had a very troubling dream that night. They were all back in Rivendell, and he was kissing Legolas. He stood on a chair and even then the tall elf had to stoop for their mouths to touch, but the kiss was wonderful, lighting his entire body afire the way only one other person in the whole of Middle-Earth had been able to do. Then Legolas pulled away, smiled at him and before his eyes became Pippin. Merry registered some part of himself being shocked, but the part that was controlling him, the only part that really mattered: his heart, was telling him to kiss Pippin again.

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Again? I've been kissing Legolas!

No Meriadoc, you only think you have

His awakening wasn't the sharp, jarring return to consciousness one experiences after a nightmare, but a gradual realisation that he was awake. He opened his eyes and rolled over onto his stomach, his sky-coloured eyes roaming over his sleeping companions. They landed lastly on Pippin and remained there. In sleep he looked so innocent, free of any cares that the world might choose to bestow on him, he looked incapable of causing the kind of pain that Merry had experienced the night before. He looked beautiful.

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You caused him pain as well. Much more than he caused you.

Fat lot you know, I've been hurt by this too.

I *am* you, you insufferable git! And it's all very well that you've been hurt, but you haven't given your deepest love to someone you trusted, bared your soul to them, and had it thrown back into your face. Pippin has. Personally, I think he deserves much better than you, but since he seems to have his heart set on loving you, I suggest you get yours in the right place.

Oh, sod off.

~*~

The Company made Lothlorien that day, and after a brief meeting with the Lord Celeborn and the Lady Galadriel, they were left much to their own devices. They spoke little with the Elves of the city because most of them couldn't, or wouldn't speak in the Westron tongue. The Company spent meal times together, but as they pretty much had free roam of the lovely little city, they spent most of their time exploring.

Of this privilege, Merry took full advantage, and, much like with Rivendell, he found himself falling in love with Lorien. It was during his daily walk through the many gardens of the city that he found himself being attacked. From behind, his shoulders were grabbed and he was spun roughly around. Then the hands took his face, and soft lips were pressed to his mouth. He knew with out even looking that it was Pippin: no one else could do to Merry with a single kiss what this one was doing to him. His whole body was burning deliciously, every part of him was screaming for more as he brought his hands up to tangle in the curly mop of Pippin's hair. He played his tongue along Pippin's soft lips and they parted allowing him to deepen the kiss, and he made sure to explore every part of Merry's mouth he could reach with his tongue. Merry wrapped his arms around Pippin's small body, pulling him closer pressing his pelvis to Pippin's all the while drowning in the taste of him: indescribably sweet, positively intoxicating. This was all Merry needed, he could survive the rest of his life just from this one kiss.

Pippin pulled away then, and his smile was so bright through his breathlessness that 

Merry wondered that the whole of Middle-Earth couldn't see it.

"You do feel it, don't you Merry? You do love me."

And Merry knew without even thinking about it that this was true. Let the world find out, he thought to himself, let everyone in the world know that I'm in love with the most beautiful, perfect hobbit ever to walk Middle-Earth. "More than my very life." He whispered, then took Pippin's mouth in another kiss.

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Told you so, Merry Brandybuck.

Oh, sod off... 


End file.
